N00747:116
Spiritual desertions discovered and remedied. Being the substance of divers sermons preached for the…
Spiritual desertions discovered and remedied. Being the substance of divers sermons preached for the help of dark souls, labouring under divine withdrawings. / By Samuel Willard, teacher of a church in Boston. ; [Four lines from Isaiah]
printed by B. Green for Michael Perry and Benjamin Eliot, 1699
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. We are told whence it is that their trouble proceeds; viz. The ••prehens••• of Gods withdrawing from them. And here observe,
1. The foundation of this trouble i• in the desertion it self: it is that which gives being to it. If God should not withdraw, they would not thus be troubled: could they always enjoy the light of his countenance, it would abundantly satisfy them, let what else will befall them. Psal. 23.4. When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will from no ill, for thou art with me.
2. That which nextly produceth […] trouble is their apprehension of this. Sometimes they are in so drowsy a frame, that God is hidden, and they are insensible of it, and so long it disquiets them not. How long it was thus with David we cannot certainly tell, but it was so till the Prophet came and r••sed him▪ • Sam. 12. begin. But when once the spiritual sense is awakened, and they miss, and cannot find him, now they are distressed. And it is an usual thing for ⟨p. 56⟩him to give such a touch on the Conscience upon his withdrawing, which quickens this sense; so •he found it in,